History and architecture
The Fisk-Harkness House is a town house originally constructed in 1871 and substantially altered in 1906 to the designs of architect Raleigh C. Gildersleeve, who transformed the building into a grand five-story American Basement-plan house with an asymmetrical neo-Tudor Gothic style limestone facade. Gildersleeve practiced architecture in New York City and New Jersey between 1892 and 1915, and is best known for the Tudor-inspired buildings he designed for the campus of Princeton University.
Harvey E. Fisk, the owner of the house at the time of the alterations, was a prominent investment banker attracted to this area of Fifth Avenue because of its residential prestige. This town house is a rare survivor of the period when the area around Fifth Avenue in Midtown was home to Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens, who built mansions or updated existing row houses for their private residences. In 1909 Fisk sold his town house to Standard Oil heir William L.
Harkness, whose widow sold the building to an art gallery in 1922. Later occupants of the Fisk-Harkness House included the Automobile Club of America (1924 to 1932); Symons Galleries (1938 to 1949), an antiques dealer; and the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (1965 to the present), a college of fashion merchandising and business.
Sources and further reading
This history comes from the Landmarks app’s historical catalog. Names and building uses may reflect the period described.